A packinghouse is a facility where goods, such as fruit and vegetables, are received and processed prior to distribution to market. In the typical packinghouse, the fruits or vegetables are first received and then sorted based upon several factors, for example, size and quality grade. Once sorted, the fruits or vegetables are moved through the packinghouse via conveyor belts to labeler machines, which place labels on the goods.
During the label application phase of processing, the speed at which the labels are applied, the accuracy of the label application, and the space required by the labeler, i.e. the labeler footprint, may be important. Speed may be important because the fruit or vegetable is to be packed and shipped quickly so that the shelf life in stores will be as long as possible. Accuracy, i.e. the successful application of the proper label to the corresponding fruit or vegetable, may be important for allowing the packinghouse to process produce with a label applied thereto and because packinghouse profitability is adversely affected when a label that would have permitted a higher selling price is not applied to the fruit or vegetable otherwise capable of commanding such higher price.
Space may be important because of the physical configuration of a given packinghouse. The fruit or vegetable can be transported in a series of lanes, each lane conveying the fruit on a plurality of cradles connected to a conveyor belt, each cradle supporting and locating an individual fruit/vegetable. The produce in each lane is sized by conventional methods and subsequently conveyed past a plurality of labelers arranged in series or banks, each of the labelers in the series of labelers being loaded with a different label, i.e. a label imprinted with indicia to identify the size and variety of the fruit or vegetable. The physical arrangement of the packinghouse often limits, without major reconstruction of the building, the number of banks of labelers it is possible to install.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,427,746 to Anderson et al., assigned to the present application's assignee, discloses an example of a labeler for labeling fruit and vegetables. The labeler may include a wheel with a plurality of extendable bellows affixed thereto for placing the labels, i.e. a bellows wheel. With this type of labeler, the bellows wheel rotates individual bellows past a magazine or cassette, which dispenses the labels from a carrier strip. The labels are held in position on the end of the bellows by application of a vacuum to the bellows that is pulled through openings in the end of the bellows. The vacuum also serves to maintain the bellows in a retracted position. As the bellows wheel is rotated, thereby moving a bellows with label dispensed thereon to an application position adjacent a fruit, positive pressure is applied and the bellows is extended to contact the fruit and apply the label thereto.
Although the rotary bellows wheel type labeler has desirable advantages and features, this labeler may have certain drawbacks. For example, the produce is typically manually sorted and singulated, i.e. arranged into series of single file lanes and in individual cradle positions, upstream of the labeler. Each of the labelers is assigned a single lane and typically provides a single label to apply to the produce in the lane. This requires accurate processing upstream to categorize and carry the produce to the appropriate labeler. Of course, this adds cost and complication to the labeling process since each type of fruit to be labeled needs custom conveyors and lanes.